John Charles Fremont, military governor of St. Louis and the
Missouri district, was failing to heed the old saying that when you
finds yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging. He
had enraged half of Missouri with his highhanded orders, including
an emancipation of slaves and threats to confiscate the property of,
and then execute, Confederate sympathizers. Then he got the Union
supporters just as angry by playing politics instead of going in
support of the Irish Guard in Lexington. Today the St. Louis Evening
News pointed out some of these facts to their readership. Fremont's
response was to padlock the presses and have the editor thrown in
jail.

Tuesday Sept. 23 1862EMMA, EUGENE ENDURE EXCESSES

Far from the well-known battlefield of Antietam, where the wounded
were still being tended and the dead were by now mostly buried,
other battles were fought on other fields today. An “Indian
uprising” was still simmering in the Dakota Territory, with fighting
near Fort Abercrombie. Two Confederate attacks on Union shipping
took place in the inland waters. On the Ohio River the steamer Emma
was plundered by guerilla forces at Foster’s Landing. And on the
Mississippi River, the ship Eugene was attacked near Randolph,
Tennessee. The ship was able to escape with minimal damage, but
Union troops burned much of the town of Randolph as punishment for
“harboring rebels.”

Gen. William Starke Rosecrans was down in Chattanooga, but he was
not out. His army, although defeated at Chickamauga Creek, had
managed to retreat and establish strong enough fortifications that
he was in no immediate danger--he just couldn’t leave. Today in
Washington it was decided to detach the 11th and 12th Corps from the
Army of the Potomac and send them to Rosecrans’ relief. The 11th in
particular had been battered and demoralized first at
Chancellorsville and then at Gettysburg, and a change of scenery
seemed in order. In two days the two corps were loaded, men,
artillery, horses and supplies and all, into every railroad vehicle
that could be borrowed, begged or commandeered, and west they went.

Friday Sept. 23 1864BLAIR BATTERING BRAVELY BORNE

The Blair family name runs through the history of the Civil War on
the Union side. Some of their efforts were military (Frank Blair
Jr., was one of the best of those who achieved general’s rank
without benefit of military training) but far more important was the
family’s political activities. High on the list was the name of
Montgomery Blair, wheeler-dealer, consummate behind-the-scenes
politician and staunch ally of Abraham Lincoln. His only official
title was Postmaster General, a job he had filled well during a time
when so much mail was in motion that a nationwide paper shortage
occurred. But he was also a leader of the moderate faction of the
Democratic Party, which made him anathema to the Radical
Republicans. To pacify them, Lincoln was forced today to ask for
Blair’s resignation. He gave it, gracefully.